oh my lord *wibble*

Jack/Jack set to John Barrowman's version of 'Hero'.

Yes, I know it's a sappy song beyond belief. but the lyrics work far too well for that ep and that whole dynamic Cath Tregenna describes of them supporting each other, plus of course, Original!Jack being such a complete matinee idol cliche of an air ace hero. Yes, Matt Rippy, you are. Don't try to deny it.

And here's teh mp3 of just the song : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NI79NJU8

Lock, Stock

Last night, was idly reading jennyo's lj (yes, I know, I was being masochistic) disagreeing with her view on most tv shows and characters and so on as usual, and then followed a link to a discussion in someone else's blog on gun ownership. Which was... really weird. Sport vs. enjoyment vs. home defending in places where there no police to handgun vs. rifle usefulness to urban and... seriously. Weird.

Because? Yes, we in the UK have plenty of gun crime. We're quite aware of it, thankyou. But owning a gun for most people is a complete non-issue, because the only people we even expect to have guns are farmers and criminals. And re-enactors. Coppers only have them if they're part of a special ops / armed response unit. (yes, for the americans who aren't aware of this, most coppers will go their entire career without ever having handled one, let alone fired one) I know that at one point pre-WWII before guns were generally banned in public life, gun ownership per capita in the UK was actually higher than it was in the states - but these were mostly kept in people's cupboards. Plus, no mystique whatsoever about said ownership - it's not viewed as a right in any way. Sure, you get the occasional set of loud voices, like when guns were banned in the nineties, but they were in such a minority that they were perceived as a tiny fringe group. Put it like this : Nutter comes into a school in Dunblaine (it's in Scotland for those of you with dodgy geography skills) and shoots up the kids and teachers before turning it on himself. Government decides to ban guns. Entire population : 'Well of course, they're bloody dangerous! Why would you have a gun *anyway*?'

I know more people who've used a bow and arrow than have ever handled guns outside of airsoft and re-enactment.

...So, yeah, reading that blog discussion was damn weird.

...and now I'm going to go hide under a blanket

Okay, occasionally in my job, you get articles you stop and go 'ewwwww' or 'huh' or giggle at. The pubic lice one is an absolute classic. (yes, the one about humans having both geni of chimps *and* apes' lice that was in the papers last week is one of ours - bonus points for the diagram with the evolutionary tree using a pic of Darwin for the human)

However. Psychiatry during the Nazi era: ethical lessons for the modern professional is just an absolute 'oh my god I'm now going to sit here and shudder' one. About how psychiatrists and the generally accepted mindset towards the mentally ill at the time and the lead-up history led to genocide. The extermination of the mentally ill wasn't even condoned or ordered, and it all happened before the top brass hinged on 'The Final Solution' for jews, gypsies, homosexuals and other undesirables, and was in fact what led to that. 200,000 in Germany alone.

...And this is why I'm turning up the VERY VERY CHEERY Kylie on my stereo. NOW.